Fairytale
by Jehzavere
Summary: Why? Because, when I'm gone, all that will remain is the memory of what was. Yuuhi x Aki.


Author's notes: This was written a long while ago, when I was a new member of the Passionate Kiss doujinshi circle. It never saw the light of day as anything drawn, but I decided to tidy it up and turn it into fanfic. It is color, moving and still, and perhaps even...a fairytale.

_( Why? ) _

_Because, when I'm gone, all that will remain is the memory of what was. _

_( the memory that I leave behind ) _

_Because you will have to learn to live on only memory in the future that awaits you. _

_( the future that you have chosen ) _

_Because I loved you. _

_( but I loved him more ) _

_Because... _

_I learned to let go. _

_( I found my way to the heavens before you, in the end. ) _

_This is for you. _

I remember the night that you first called me to you. I should have known then, that to answer you once would mean that I would answer to you forever. But I was desperate, and it was raining, and the one I loved was in the arms of someone that would hurt her again and again, and I could only watch. Always watch, never touch. It never changed.

I thought maybe, that if I went to you, that if I brought you back with me, that I could do what he could not. Because she loved you before she ever loved him, before any of us ever became tangled in this sick mess. If I saved you, her love for you might extend to me, and it would all be over.

But it didn't end. No, that's when it all just began.

I came to you with nothing but illusions and a broken heart. But that's what you were expecting, weren't you? It's what you were hoping for. Because you were torn inside. You were also broken, and another had claimed your eyes. The one inside you loved the one inside her.

The thing I remember most that night was your smile. The easy way it spread across your face, the way that I could tell that it was false, forced, but so beautifully practiced. You had perfected the art of having others seeing what you wanted them to see. And I was blinded to you then. Oh, but I could tell. I could tell this was a game, a dangerous one with stakes far too high. But I was willing for her. Always anything for her, the demon angel in my dreams.

What a fool I was. I damned myself that night. I expected to see her reflected in you. But I never, never thought that I would find someone more beautiful than she could ever be. No, you were not the shadow of her. You were the shining everything that she could never be.

It was after that night on the bridge, when Tooya came back without you. I saw where you had drawn his blood, but I didn't know it was you, not then. Maybe if I had known, I would have smiled. Or run away, far away from Mikage blood forever. It has proven to be my downfall, and I...

I remember your eyes by candlelight. It was the first thing I really noticed about you, the first thing I was attracted to. I denied then, because I was still hurting over her, and you had yet to drive away her memory.

When I got your letter, I didn't show anyone. Not my sister-in-law, for fear of her interfering, Not Aya, because it required her silence most of all for the plan to work. Not Tooya, because...

Definitely not Tooya.

You asked me to come alone, saying that we had a common enemy, a common goal. We both wanted to see an end to the red haired demon that plagued our lives, because he possessed something that we both wanted.

And like the fool, I came. I came in the rain, with a desperate heart, with the sound of them kissing in my ears, with her gasping his name burned into my mind. I came and let you walk me to a dark place where you sat beside me and let the candlelight make your eyes liquid gold and oh so beautiful-

You told me, then, what I wanted most to hear. If I promised my help, you would let me give her what Tooya could not...you. Aki, her brother. The one she loved before any of us.

The light in your eyes revealed more than your beauty that night. I realized, then, that it was not her twin speaking to me. No, your eyes held a look far more ancient. I knew that to get rid of one demon, I'd have to make a promise to another.

I didn't care then. You smiled, amused at watching me struggle. You were so haunting, so ethereal and beautiful then that I thought I saw her in you, and I made my choice.

I knew I was not be doing the "right thing". But I no longer cared. I was burning inside, and you offered the one thing that no one else had given me yet.

Hope.

I answered yes, and you moved toward me without a word.

I left behind everything, even my goodbyes. I knew they would worry, but maybe some selfish part of my heart wanted them too. I was always beside her, and she never saw me except when she got too lonely.

Lonely because another man wasn't there, the man she loved. But it was never me. It never had been.

I don't know who he left behind or what story he told to those that once controlled him...maybe he just walked out, without a word...but he met me in the place he told me he'd be waiting. It was night again, but this time there was no rain to cloak our actions, only unending, damning silence.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect that night. Certainly not a soft smile, or him offering me a hand. To guide me through the darkness, he said. I didn't understand, but I took it, and let him pull me through the streets and subways until we somehow ended up far, far away from the glittering city lights and in a place I had never seen before.

This was what it used to look like, before, he said. His eyes had a faraway look in them, and I knew that he was thinking of her.

I don't know what made me so angry, but I had jerked my hand out of his so quickly and violently that he stared at me for a few moments with a surprised expression on his face.

Finally, he touched me softly on the cheek.

"Yuuhi," he said. "I see you, now. My mind might be drawn back to memory, but I only see you."

I should have known, then, what the future held for me. Should have run from that soft touch, that dark whisper, the words that claimed me where I stood...only I didn't know. Until it was too late, I would not understand what his gaze meant that night.

The night was warm, the edges of summer still lingered here. The heated wind on my skin did not help me drive away thoughts of her, and I wondered if I had made a horrible mistake. Here I was, standing with her twin, not her, and he was looking at me in the way I always had wanted her to. Or maybe...maybe this time, I truly was losing my mind. Maybe the night, the fireflies, the beautiful landscape and this otherworldly creature with two souls fighting within him were making me believe the impossible.

The moon reflected on his skin, his hair, and I suddenly wanted to touch him. I imagined things I should not have...things I should not think about another male, things I should not think about the twin of the one I loved.

He laughed when I ran. His laughter followed after me, clinging to me like the burning air. I knew it was too late to run...he would always follow me like this, in one way or another. But I ran anyway, knowing I would not have the strength to face that smile again until morning.

How very, very wrong I was. The rising of the sun only burns away all shields, exposing all truths in a way that is even more painful than anything dreamed by night.

I awoke to a soft touch on my lips.

I tried to ignore it, to sink back into sleep. The touch, however, was insistent, trailing across my mouth and demanding entrance. It tasted sweet, and tangy, and my lips parted as I suddenly thought of her...

I remembered where I was and who I was with and shot up in blind panic.

My eyes met his, and he laughed, the picture of innocence. In one hand he held an orange slice, in the other a breakfast tray.

"I thought you might be hungry," he said simply, and once again placed the orange slice to my lips.

I didn't move, too shocked to reject or accept his offer. He gently forced the fruit into my mouth, and I absently began to chew as his fingers brushed and lingered against my lips.

He watched me eat for a few moments, and I shifted nervously with the uncomfortable silence. I was not yet used to that look in his eyes.

"I hear that you can cook," he said finally. That beautiful, terrible smile again.

I nodded, glad to be on familiar ground again. Cooking, I understand. It was safe. It was my art.

He lowered his eyes to the tray of toast and fruit, the same smirk still spread across his elegant lips.

"I never learned," he said. "The boy...does not know either. His mother took care of it for him. And she...she took care of it for me. Few men took the time to learn how, back then."

When he said that, I suddenly wondered how much Aki was aware of. Was he sleeping, like Ceres, somewhere deep inside? Was he the one that looked at me with that hungry, dangerous expression, or was it the one who walked the earth long ago?

"Perhaps," he continued "You could cook for us while you are here? I can only prepare the most simple meals. And I do enjoy...tasting delicious things..."

I ignored his sudden change of tone and all that it implied. I nodded, and then met his eyes.

"Who are you? What do I call you?"

My question startled the dark, hungry look from his eyes, and I was pleased that it took him a few moments to regroup his thoughts and answer. I may have started out as the pawn in this game, but I learned long ago that all games are two sided.

Finally, he shrugged.

"Call me Aki," he said. "Call me Mikage. I do not care. We share the same blood, he and I."

"Does he..."

"He is sleeping," Mikage said. "I am not like her. I do not let the weaker part control me. That is why...that is why I will have her, again. She can only hide, and soon she will find herself trapped with nowhere else to run to."

He smiled, leaning close to me. I did not like the way his breath fell upon my neck.

"If you're good," he purred. "I'll let him out, and you can play with him. You can become friends with him. He'll adore you, you'll become his savior. His sister would like that, wouldn't she? She'd fall, crying at your feet, in thanks. She'd do anything to repay you..."

I closed my eyes against those sweet, sweet words, but he was a master of manipulation, and they has already become a poison in my veins.

"Yes," I whispered softly. "Yes...that is what I want."

"Good," he said, smiling. "I'm glad you understand. I give you what you want..."

His hands closed around my wrists, and for the first time since our meeting, I was truly afraid.

"...and you give me what I want."

I was able to avoid him for the rest of the day, he tended to keep to himself and exist in the shadows. Every time I'd chance upon him, his eyes held that faraway look again, which suited me just fine. I was able to avoid questioning, I was able to escape the demand he had let hang in the air, unfulfilled. I took the time to explore the place he had brought me, a small house somewhere in rural Japan. It must have been the air here, the open sky, the memories clinging here from the past...but I soon became lost and haunted in my own thoughts.

What was it that he could want from me?

I had thought that I was a way to get to Ceres, or maybe even Tooya. He hated Tooya for touching "his woman." I knew he must hate me, too, but I was too useful at the moment to destroy. Or maybe...more accurately, more painfully...

He knew that I wasn't a threat. I had no hold over Ceres or Aya, and so the being that was Aki and Mikage saw no threat in me to former wife or beloved sister.

I also wondered what part Aki played in all this. Did he truly sleep through it all? Did his feelings for Aya extend beyond that of sibling love?

What did he think of Tooya, the man that was his guardian, the man that now slept beside the person he held dearest to his heart?

I wondered if he resented being replaced, or if he reveled in this new freedom.

It was nightfall before I realized what use I really was to Mikage. I reflected back on our conversation, on the burning words and look in his eyes when he spoke to me.

Yes, he wanted to punish me. He wanted to punish me, because there was one thing I could do that no one couldn't. And he wouldn't let me anymore. I had willingly walked into his hands, the perfect toy, the perfect revenge.

Without me, no one could seal away Ceres. She would not be forced to sleep inside Aya's mind anymore.

He had been willing to make a deal with me, but what revenge would he take upon me for my kisses? Kisses that marked his property, kissed that hid away the woman he'd spent forever chasing down.

His chase could begin again, and there would be no where for her to hide anymore.

It was all because of me. All my fault, if anyone got hurt. I'd walked into the hands of the devil, because he offered the sweetest reward ...for the price of my soul. I was a traitor, I was weak, I was...

I had just wanted her love. It drove me to madness. I was yet another mortal who's sinning went too far when I dared to lust for an angel.

He entered the room that I'd claimed, breaking my thoughts and casting me further into confusion. In his hands he held a bowl with some sort of noodle, and for a moment I felt guilty for not offering to prepare dinner. He seemed unconcerned, however, and sat down beside me on one fluid movement.

I suddenly felt very tired. I was a traitor, and I knew it. He was going to hurt me, and I knew it. But that didn't matter anymore. All that mattered was that I'd paid the price, and I'd get what I wanted in the end.

"I know you're using me," I said quietly. "And I know that once you're done using me, you're going to get your revenge on me for touching her. For keeping her from you."

He laughed.

I turned away. I didn't want to play his game. I knew what lay ahead. He would get what he wanted, and I wished he wouldn't pretend that he was trying to do me a favor.

I froze when I felt a hand on my thigh and a touch of lips on my air.

"I see," he said softly. "I see now. You want me to punish you, don't you? You want me to hurt you. You want me to extract bloody, merciless revenge on you...because you think you deserve it. Because you want to be a victim. Because, in a way, you're betraying her, but you can't stop yourself from doing it."

His words cut me deeper than any physical weapon ever could, because his words were the truth.

"I don't want to hurt you, Yuuhi," he says. "Aki doesn't, either. You treated her kindly. You protected her. You didn't try to take...what wasn't yours."

He lowers his lashes, and I try to pretend I don't feel his lips trailing along my neck. This wasn't what I wanted. This wasn't happening. This wasn't...

"I know what it's like to hurt. I saw it in you. I knew I could use you. I knew if I had you, I could get to her easier. But I didn't plan to harm you, unless you got in my way. I'm not an evil man, Yuuhi, I'm just..."

Desperate. Hurt. Alone. He didn't have to say the words, because in that sense, we were both the same. We were both driven to commit sin in the name of a woman we loved, a woman who would not see us, would not have us, would not love...

"If you want her," I said. "I will help you. If Ceres is gone, will Aya...?"

"She will be yours." Mikage said, "Tooya will be dead, I will free Aki, and everything will work out for the better. We can all have what we want, if you do as I say."

How could something that sound so right...feel so wrong?

He leaned in closer to me, a serpent promising heaven.

"Tooya is not a good man. He would have killed her, Yuuhi. He does not love her. He cannot love her. He will only cause her pain. He's a puppet, he's an empty shell. It is better that he does not live. You cannot feel guilty over the death of a man like that."

"But..." the one thing that made this all wrong, the one thing that would haunt my happiness with her forever. "...she loves him. She loves him, not me."

His eyes met mine, and I knew I would resist no more. Angel blood ran through Aki's eyes as well, and I could never fight it.

"She loves him...but would you let that love lead to her death, when you could love her more? When you could protect her?"

I nodded, defeated. There was no fight left in me. I was his to manipulate as he wished.

All for her...

Or so I had thought, then.

I was surprised when he kissed me. Slow, as if savoring a fine wine. I wondered, absently, how he kissed her, and why he was kissing me. It did not occur to me then why I did not fight him.

He shoved me roughly to the floor, and I stared up at him in surprise. His face was flushed, his eyes were darkening with desire, but his parted lips held a knowing smirk.

"Because," he said, pinning my hands above my head. "... you still want to be punished."

I did not fight. I could not fight. I didn't understand why this could feel so good.

In the moonlight that framed his face, I was put under some sort of dark spell of heaven. What else could have made me surrender like that, so willingly, under the hands of the enemy? Or maybe it was the way that his face was like hers, only...more beautiful.

No, that can't be right. I love her. She's the one I want touching me. She's...

He drew a gasp from me by merely running his fingers softly along my arm. He knew where to touch, this one did. For as long as his spirit had spent wandering the earth, searching for Ceres...he must know all the ways to make anyone bend to his will.

Anyone mortal, at least. And I was very mortal, which he proved by biting the skin of my throat, marking me and making me scream.

"You taste like honey," he whispered, voiced laced with darkness.

I moaned, and pushed myself against those lips. I wanted that voice. I wanted those hands. Those beautiful, pale hands running possessively over me and making me submit.

I didn't know I was begging him until it was too late.

A chuckle from above.

"So easy, to please you. Do you even know who is touching you? Who do you see, Yuuhi, when you look at me?"

I met his eyes , holding them with the only strength that I had left.

"I don't care."

I didn't. Not anymore. All I wanted now was all of the pain, love, guilt and feeling in my heart to melt away and let me drown in the feeling of his hands between my legs.

His eyes widened in amusement. Laughter cascaded down on my skin as his hands descended to my sides.

"Then we shall have fun tonight, you and I."

I did not care about having fun. I did not care that a devil in angel's skin held me. All I cared was that he kept touching me, kept making me moan and surrender and forget in a hot rush of skin and breath and velvet whispering.

"Touch me," he said, taking one of my hands and guiding it to his chest. "It has been a long time since I've had time to play with anyone. And this boy...this boy has never..."

I froze. I had forgotten that Aki was the innocent victim in this game between us.

"Go ahead," he said, gently, caressing my hair with surprising tenderness. "This body...he's very beautiful, isn't he? It's the angel blood. It's her blood... and mine. I give you permission. I know you won't hurt him."

Hesitantly, I touched his shoulder. My hand trembled. He was very much like her, only more...I could not deny that I desired him. That I wanted him, for one reason or another.

He pressed himself down on me, more demanding this time.

"They are twins, after all..." he said. "You can pretend it's her, if you want...this is my gift to you...for being such a good, cooperative boy..."

He pressed his hips against mine, grinding them in a way that felt too good to be real, in a way that drove all thought from my mind and left me whimpering and breathless.

I don't know what happened then. It shouldn't...have even happened in the first place. But the way he touched me, with eyes focused and burning, I knew he was seeing me and no one else. He wanted me. He was pleased with the way he could make me gasp, moan, or shudder under his fingers. He might have loved her, he probably always will, but in that moment, all he felt or saw or heard was me.

Even if I was just his latest toy.

I knew something had changed in me when I looked into those eyes and saw Aki, not Aya. And it frightened me. I could not think of her, I could not remember the way her hair smelled, or the way she laughed. I was too enthralled with the sounds this lovely creature made when I shyly slipped my hands into his pants.

I didn't really know what I was doing, but I mirrored his movements, I did to him what he did to me. It was like a dark dance, a spiral into some abyss that I would never be able to climb out of.

"Call my name" he said suddenly.

"I ..can't..." I whispered. I did not know what name to call, I did not know who it was that I wanted touching me anymore.

His lips touched mine, and his hands froze as I shuddered under them.

"Call my name" he insisted, softer, darker.

"I...I don't..."

I nearly screamed as his hips rubbed once more against my own, and he reached down to spread my legs further apart.

"You know who I am. What I will always be."

I did not answer then, and he did not ask again until he had worked me to the point where I could no longer recall my own name, could feel nothing but his touch and will and wants upon me. In the moment, he asked once more.

In that moment, I knew the answer, and damned myself as I cried out in release and pain and surrender.

( Mine. Yours. )

I belong..to...

Make me into the nothing you want me to be if I am ever without you.

I thought that the next few days would be the thing to break me. I thought misery would have eaten me alive, that he would abuse me out of or into self-loathing, that it would all shatter beneath my hands and that I wouldn't have to worry anymore because I'd finally be driven into a painless madness.

I was wrong. If anything, I felt like I had woken up from a long sleep.

During the day, I cooked. It shocked me that I didn't do it because it was what I loved doing, but because I wanted to see the smile on his face when saw what I had prepared for him. He vanished a lot during the days, I assumed it was involving his hunt for Ceres. He didn't tell me what I did, he hadn't yet asked me to do anything to further betray my sister or the one I loved. He only told me to stay here, to stay hidden, and keep myself amused.

The night, however, we shared. I was a distraction, a release for all the frustration he felt at not being able to catch her. He was...

What I was beginning to feel for him was dangerous, but in a way I could not explain. I was drawn to him, but not him. It was something within him, something familiar, but different...

You're beautiful, Aya, You're sweet, and pure. But...

You're...you're not...

You're not like this.

Not at all. I don't think you ever could be.

Then what...what draws me to you?

The days continued like this, him and I in our cycles of day and night, and so I was surprised when one night he came to me wearing a strange smile. He touched me gently, and closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was someone different.

Aki.

I pulled back, afraid at being so close to her mirror reflection...afraid of seeing anger and hatred in the eyes of someone I'd come to need so much.

He looked around, confused. But then he noticed me, his eyes settled on my face, and I knew that he knew.

The silence was suffocating, but it didn't take long for him to break it.

"Why are you doing this?"

I did not expect that question from him.

I shrugged, I really didn't know why I was doing this anymore, so I gave him the only answer that might satisfy him

"Because I love her."

"Did he ask you? And you agreed, freely?"

"Yes," I said. I did not meet his eyes. I could not. "I chose this. This is what I want."

"Yuuhi."

I raised my gaze to his slowly, afraid to see what reality held for me.

Angel face. Angel eyes.

"Yes, Aki?"

"I know you let him touch you."

I did not give him an answer. He did not need one to understand.

"Yuuhi..."

Veiled eyes, and he went silent.

There were many things he could have said to me. Many accusations he could have hurled, many bitter remarks he could have whispered to break me and haunt me forever.

"Yuuhi...would you touch...me?"

I could barely answer, my mind had shattered.

"Only if that was what you wanted."

He looked at me, and I could see he was aching inside. For something he never thought he'd have, for someone he couldn't have, for a thing he could not name. I could have turned away, then, and ended whatever new game Mikage was trying to start with me. But I could not turn away from what he said next.

"I do. I do want it. I want you to touch me. Not him. Me."

He lay a hand on my arm, and I could see he was near tears.

"Please. Please. Just let me feel...touch. I hate this. It's like I don't exist anymore. I have become nothing more than a shadow. I hate that dark place that he sends me to sleep in. I hate being away from Aya, I hate the fact that my blood has broken apart my family, I..."

I held him, as he cried on me tears that seem to bleed from his soul. I held him, but he didn't ask for more. He would not use me, like Aya would, like Mikage did. He forgave me for using him, and all he asked was that he not be alone in the darkness again when he cried. All he asked...

He wanted me to see him and not the face of another.

I know this feeling. I know you. I feel you, I know the pain that lives inside you...

You are...

I stroked his hair until his sobs had quieted. On impulse, or maybe habit, I kissed the soft skin of his neck. He went rigid, and I cursed myself for forgetting.

"I'm sorry." I said. "I..forgot...I.."

He shook his head, quieting me.

"No." he said. "It's okay. It's alright. He...he gave me to you. Didn't he?"

Those words shook me in a way that nothing else could. I broke down, and now it was I who was crying. Crying for myself, for her, for this precious person I'd stained with sin.

His fingers trailed along with my tears. He understood.

He knew.

"Yuuhi...she cannot understand. She cannot see. She is as much a part of him as he is a part of her, and they cannot be separate, they cannot see anything else besides each other."

"Aya..." I whispered her name, a name that had begun to lose all its former meaning to me.

"Aya exists for Ceres. Tooya exists for Aya. Mikage exists for Ceres. All they have is each other, there can be no one else."

I shook my head. I wouldn't...could not...believe him.

"No."

"They cannot see. But I do...I see it through his eyes! He wants her, would do anything to have her. See how he plays with you? He recognizes his pain in you. He knows what madness, what desire can do to a person.. He burns for her...I...I'm burning, Yuuhi, and soon, there won't be anything left. I won't be able to protect you much longer, Yuuhi. Soon, he won't be gentle. Soon, he'll tire of chasing her, and someone will pay in blood. "

Aya. I had existed for Aya, I sold my soul for Aya. I thought I had loved her more than my own life.

I was wrong.

She is a reflection of him. All the things I desired in her, were born of him. Her other half.

"Aya is so precious to me. So very precious. But I realized, before the end of this all...I have to let her go. She has to let me go. She can't be mine any longer. She...she never was...mine." He said.

I felt the silence, I felt the truth of his words, I felt the guilt weighing down on me.

"I've never had anyone." I whisper.

He looks up at me, startled out of his next words. I had no desire to hear what he might have said next. I looked at the moonlight shining down on him, revealing everything I had held sacred in her, only in a form more pure, more real.

I had to touch him, just once, to see if it really was all real. To make sure it wasn't another game.

He didn't move, but closed his eyes.

Those who are young and in pain cling to any form of hope that passes their way. I thought it was Aya, I thought it was Mikage... but here, on this night, he was salvation, he was purity, and the way he stared up at me, lips parted, was too much for me to handle.

He did not resist my touch, and I was not surprised when he accepted my kiss without protest. In one breath, he was mine.

In this darkness, I was no longer alone.

I awoke to a bitter taste on my lips.

Teasing fingers caressed my cheeks, tracing a warm, liquid trail from my mouth to my neck. I opened my eyes to find him watching me.

It's amazing how the look in one's eye can tell you so much. And this look told me many things. One of them being that this was no longer Aki. The second told me...that last night I had revealed too much to the dark spirit.

I didn't move as he drew me closer, didn't move as I saw that the warmth dripping from his hands was drying blood.

He ran his tongue against my ear and spoke softly to me as he tangled his fingers in my hair.

"I knew you would be amusing," he said, almost tenderly. "Only, I didn't know that you'd be this much fun."

I didn't respond. What words were left between me and this man who had shaken up my entire world?

"I knew it, when you thought you'd fallen for her," he continued. " Because they were twins, and I'd lived within their blood their entire lifetime. I know their secrets, their wishes, their strengths...their weaknesses. I live in every shadow they cast, I know what light makes them shine. They are my own, and they can hide nothing from me. Nothing...but her."

His hand clenched in my hair, and his gaze burned into mine.

"She is indeed his reflection, Yuuhi. He pampered her too much. She drew life from him, and that strength is the only thing keeping her alive today. It was that...that strength burning within her, and her beauty...that's what made you think you loved her, wasn't it?"

I closed my eyes and forced myself to feel nothing, because in this moment, he could break me.

"I knew that when you saw him, when you met him...my precious, beautiful heir...that you'd understand. That you'd really fall. Those that love the moon soon find out that it glows so lovely only because of the sun's light. And he...my Aki shines, doesn't he? And with his shine, he burns. It is her blood, and mine."

I shook my head. His voice had become rambling, and distant. I could still taste the blood on my lips. I could still feel Aki's desperate touch from last night.

"I don't understand." I said, almost a whisper.

He smiled, and leaned down to kiss me.

"That's why you're so much fun," he said. "You're the perfect puppet, and you don't even see it. You let everyone make you into nothing, when you are the only one that really has the power to do anything useful."

He pushes me on my back, and this time I protest.

"No," I say. "I can't do this. Not anymore. I don't want-"

"I see that Aki has broken you out of the little trance you'd let yourself fall in for the past few weeks," he said. I don't like the look in his eyes. I don't like to see that look, so unnatural now that I've met the true owner of this body. "But I don't care. I may have given him to you...but you, my pet, are still mine."

His hand slips under my waistband and I struggle against it, but even in Aki's fragile body, he is stronger than me (I).

"Don't be ungrateful," he hisses. "I've given you my most treasured possession. A male heir, a descendent that carries the blood of the one I love most in the world. I've offered you them both, now. I've seen who you are, when no one else has. How can you deny my anything that I want?"

I gasp as his hand slips between my legs, and he begins stroking me with the experience of many lifetimes. My body cannot resist his touch. It is too perfect, it feels too good...I am only mortal, and he is the demon that stains me in sin.

"Yes," he whispers. He leans closer, silver hair brushes across my face. The feel of his hands is torture, this feeling is too good, and I am soon panting in his ear. This pleases him. "The sound of you...is so beautiful, Yuuhi." He says.

He suddenly releases me, and sits up, that same empty smile gracing his pale features.

I lay stunned and unmoving. I can see my thighs, smeared with the blood, probably Tooya's, from his hands.

"I know you no longer desire me." He says simply. "You have found the one you were searching for. And she is the only one I could ever love. But..."

His eyes are dark and full of warning.

"Remember this. Always remember, Yuuhi...that I can /make/ you want me, if I needed to. Don't forget that."

I do not answer. He laughs.

"That's not all. Always remember that the lives of my descendants are in my hands. You care for them both, even if you understand that you love only one. If you ever betray me, Yuuhi...I'll kill them. Both. Do you understand?"

I nod, like the obedient dog he's made me in to.

"Good," he says. He smiles at his hands, at the red that paints them. "Because I've found out where it is. And we are going there tomorrow night. Tomorrow, you'll help me. And she'll be mine."

Before I can reply, he closes his eyes and is Aki again.

I look at the other boy, and see the pain in his eyes when he realizes where he is and what is on his hands. His eyes meet mine.

"Mikage..." he says softly. "Mikage killed today. I was there. I saw...I..."

He breaks down into tears, and I reach out, drawing him close to me. It's not to long before my own are running down my face, soaking into his hair.

"Yuuhi," he says. "Don't go. Don't go tomorrow. I won't let you. He'll make you kill Tooya! He'll...he'll make you hurt Aya, and everyone you care about! He's a monster, he's-"

I place my fingers on his lips.

"No." I say. "He's not. He's...he's just like me."

Aki's eyes open in horror, and I kiss him gently before he can protest.

"Only, he's too far gone." I whisper. "And I'm not. I still can do something about it. I still can make everything right."

"I know you can," he says. He pauses, and the sorrow in his eyes is suddenly burned away by a fierce determination. "I know how."

The fire in his eyes tells me everything. And I wish I didn't know. I wish I didn't know the only way that he...that I...could end everything that Mikage had set into motion.

"I can't do that," I say. The pain I am feeling now is like nothing I'd ever experienced before. Any moment now, I feel it will kill me from its bitter force. "Aki...I only just met you. I'm not going to let you go so soon. I'm not-"

His arms encircle my neck, and he lays his head on my chest. His voice is pleading as he presses his body against mine.

"Please." He asks softly. "I know, Yuuhi, that you are tired of everyone wanting something from you. But don't you think I am afraid, too? I have been alone, just like you. I'm not ready to let go. I'm scared. I don't want to...do what I have to do. But I also, more than anything..."

I can feel his breath against my neck, I can feel his heart beating against mine, and I know that I will not be able to deny him.

"...more than anything...I wish to be free."

I take his hands from around my neck and hold them gently in my own. I kiss them, reverently, and hold them against my chest.

"For you," I whisper. "I would do anything. I only wish...that it instead of you, that I be the one to-"

"No," he says firmly. "Don't say that, Yuuhi." His eyes soften, and he smiles at me achingly. "I'm sorry, to ask this of you." he says. "But you're the only one..."

"I know." I say.

The only one.

I love it.

I hate it.

I know now, what I must do.

All because, once, a mortal dared to fall in love with a creature of heaven, and I could not avoid the same fate.

I'll never forget the way she looked that night.

Eyes, so like his, so full of hope and terror and love as she turned to me.

Eyes that were on his, as I held him in my arms. Eyes, growing wide as she saw the dagger that I held too near to her brother's trembling body.

He smiled at her before he died, but his last sight was of me.

I'll never forget the sound of her scream.

I knew, from the moment that Mikage awoke me that morning, what I would have to do. I knew, when I made my promise to him, the depth of what he was asking.

But as his arms fell from around my neck, as she screamed as he could not, it only made it all the more real.

"Thank you," he whispered. "For...for giving me..."

I should have known this morning, what the pain would feel like. Should have know when he took me to this place, when I secretly replaced the bands on my arms and forehead that my sister had made for me, bands that would seal away the power of the heavenly maiden in I touched her.

Bands that he had forbidden me to wear.

Mikage knew, as he had stood over Aya's bloodstained body, that he had made a mistake. He knew, when he lifted his eyes and met mine, when he saw the seals that only I had the power to use.

He knew, but this time, he was the one that could not run.

My lips touched his, and it was Aki that had fell into my arms.

She did not understand why he had clung to me, why he would not look at her.

"Thank you..."

She called out to him, but he had let her go long ago. He only had time for one more goodbye.

He took my hand and pressed the dagger against his heart.

All eyes were on me, and for the first time, I didn't want them to be.

Thank you.

I saw his smile and heard her scream and felt his blood and then it was all over.

And then the world around me was on fire, but I only knelt on the ground, holding him in my lap. My hands streaked crimson into his silver hair, and Tooya was dragging Aya away from us, shouting at me to follow, begging her to understand.

Thank you.

I looked up and saw Ceres was watching me.

"Don't..."I said, not meeting her eyes. "Don't ever thank me for being a murderer."

She knelt beside me, all light and grace, as free as Aki was now that she had returned to her true form.

"My child," she said. She rested a hand over mine, stilling it's movements in Aki's stained hair. "He is alright now. Don't worry. I will take him home with me."

She took him into her arms, making it seem as if he were as light as air. The fire did not touch her.

She would take him, but the blood in my hands would remain. I would still wake up tomorrow with nothing but memory.

I didn't want to wake up alone anymore.

'If you don't leave now," she said. "Then, you'll die."

She didn't understand. I didn't care.

A sudden movement in front of me, a subtle shift of air and flame...I looked up and realized that it was me who didn't understand.

She held out a hand to me, and she was smiling.

"...if you don't leave now..."

A creature of heaven knew, that out of every kinds of death in the world...

The most final was the death of the heart and soul.

"Come." she said. "I will take you home."

I looked at her outstretched hand, at the boy lying in the arms of an angel, and made my choice.

( this is...for you.)

Some would say, that when my husband died, he left me with nothing. But that wasn't true.

He left me Yuuhi.

It took me a long time to realize this, but when I did, it was almost too late.

Yuuhi's smile, he gentle heart, his wonderful cooking, his way of speaking...they all reminded me of what I loved about the one who'd left me. It reminded me, than not all endings are final. There is always a new life to follow the old.

Some would say, that when Yuuhi died, he left me nothing.

That wasn't true.

I'm standing in my garden now, reading the letter that my brother has left me. He could have gone without a word, but Yuuhi's not like that. He understands the feelings of lonliness, he knows what it takes to gather your courage just to make it through another day.

I'll share this story with everyone that loved him. I'll share it, and try to make them understand.

And when it's over, I'll tell them not to cry. It's rain, not tears that are running down my face now. It's the icy cold water of the sky coursing all the way down to my bare toes, not my sorrow, that I'm drowning in right now.

His was not a sad story. Don't cry for him, for either of them. Don't cry, because when the sun rises to dry away the rain, they'll be there somewhere in the clouds, holding hands and watching me as I stand alone among the flowers in my garden.

Don't cry for me, either. Don't cry, because after being given so much love, I am strong enough to be alone for a while.

When Yuuhi died, some might say he abandoned me, left me with nothing.

That's not true.

He left me with the only thing I needed.

If there is a place beyond this world...

Where you can always see the smile of the one you love...

Hope.

The ending of one life just means that a new one will soon begin.

_( this is for you ) _

_because, in my way, I wanted to say... _

_( thank you )_


End file.
